Mystical Theology and Christian Self-Understanding

Early Christian theology emerged from the conviction that through Jesus's death and resurrection, humans gained unprecedented access to God, entering the heavenly sanctuary as priests and becoming children of God. This prompted new doctrinal statements about God while also intensifying the sense of what cannot be said about God—that God cannot be treated as an object among others. This tension between speaking and silence about God became central to mystical writing. The encounter between finite and infinite action in Christ and his people, in both individual and corporate prayer, is understood as a present anticipation of eternal relationship, making the mystical essentially an eschatological category.

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Abstract

The beginnings of a distinctive Christian theology lie in the conviction that human beings had been granted a new level of access to or presence to the God of Israel through the death and rising of Jesus: they were introduced into the heavenly sanctuary and accorded the dignity of priests and the intimacy of access to God as sons and daughters of the Father of Jesus. This prompts both doctrinal definition and definitional reserve: some new things must be said about God, but there is an intensified sense of what cannot be said of God, and of the truth that God cannot be an object among others. This becomes a central tension in the tradition of ‘mystical’ writing and reflection, but is congruent with central theological affirmations about the encounter of finite and infinite action in Christ and in Christ’s people. In both individual and corporate prayer, this is understood as a present anticipation of eternal relatedness, so that the ‘mystical’ is essentially an eschatological category.